


Transformers Stray Ghoul

by ThornStone8773



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Gen, Humanformers, M for ghouls eating habit, animeformers, ghoulformers, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:05:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11940849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThornStone8773/pseuds/ThornStone8773
Summary: ‘’… why, are you helping me?’’ The teen implored quietly. ‘’You know I am a ghoul. Your kin and my kin are enemies, but you still save me, why?’’‘’I am a doctor,’’ The statement following that declaration was said so casually it was as though he was only commenting on the weather, yet, at the same time, it seemed to carry the weights of a thousand lifetime.‘’Humans or ghouls, it matters not to me what your species are, life is life, and I have make an oath to preserve it.’’





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reference to the Transformers cast human appearances:  
> http://thornstone8773.tumblr.com/tagged/animeformers

1.

He woke up to the view of white ceiling, the feeling of soft, comfortable bed on his back, and warm sheet covering his body from neck to toe. Strong scent of antiseptic tickled his nostril, but instead of filling him with irritation, he found comfort in it. This scent meant he was far away from the very last place he wanted to be.

If it were not for the fact he had never seen a ship or its interior in his fourteen years of life, the blond-haired teen would have likened the room he was in to a small cabin ship. The walls were the same chalky white as the ceiling, sunbeam peeking into the room from the small square window framed by baby-blue curtains behind the head of the bed. The bedside table was squeezed in between the bed and the closet, and across from the closet were study desk and a chair adjacent to the door. The clock on the wall, right on top of the door, showed the time to be one o’clock in the afternoon.

Wherever this place was, this certainly was not what he expected to be when he woke up. He was grateful though. The alternative to this was waking up on a hard, grimy concrete in a random corner of an alley that smelled of foul rotten trash, soggy from last night rain.

However, that option sounded much better than the _other_ alternative: all of this was nothing but a wishful dream and he was still shackled to the wall in that small dark, foetid room.

Perhaps, he really was dreaming. This was too good to be true. Something as nice as this could never have happened to him.

Was he dead then? He mused with some morbid sense of excitement. His regeneration must have stopped at last and he had finally died just as he had hoped since that day his brother had gave him up under the not-so-tender ‘care’ of Vortex. How long had it been? Days, several months or was it years ago? He had no way of knowing. He was too busied caught up in the pain to care anyway.

He wanted so much to believe that he was dead, but this place was _too peaceful_. After everything he had done, he doubted that peace was what awaited him on the other side.

Another scent reached his nostrils then, pulling him away from his musing. It was enticing, faint at first but grew stronger the more he became aware of his surroundings. Finally, he recognised the scent and in response, his mouth watered. In a blink, his _kakugan_ activated, waves of inky darkness made its way inward from the rims until it flooded the whole white sclera, emerald green irises turned blood red, crimson thread-like veins spread out from it like cracks across the now pitch black sclera and continued outward, marring the smooth pallid skin around the lower eyelids and cheekbones.

Stomach let out guttural growl, hunger gnawing inside his stomach was akin of having repeatedly stabbed and had his insides gently scrambled by a sharp-edge of _koukaku kagune,_ reminding him that he had only ate small scraps for however long he had been held in captivity. Enough to keep him alive and sane and his regeneration going but never enough to satisfy his hunger completely, or giving him the necessary strength to break free from his prison.

He turned his head to the side to where the mouth-watering scent was coming from. There, at the bedside table, sat a jug of water and an empty glass… and next to it was a metal tray bearing a large, bloodied lump of meat.

Ignoring the twinge of pain from the back of his waist that accompanied his movement, the young ghoul sat up, reached out passed a pair of knife and fork lying beside the tray, grabbed the meat and gorged on it. Bloods dripped from his mouth, staining his shirt and the white sheet covering his legs. Later, he would be mortified by the mess he was making, but now, he was too hungry to care for anything except for the juicy human flesh he devoured.

Not a moment later, the meal had all disappeared into his stomach, the only proves of its existence were bloods staining his hands and mouth and the tray, dotting his shirt and white sheet and its enticing scent lingering in the air like invisible mist.

Licking the edge of his lips, the blond-haired teen stared blankly at his blood-soaked hands, the feeling of satisfaction from having a hearty meal had now faded along with his primal instinct. Conscience took back the reins, reminding him that the meat he ate was once a person, an existence that once gone could not be replaced.

Based on the texture of the flesh and the richness of the blood, the person was male on his early thirty. That was all he could glimpse from it. He doubted that this man was a suicidal victim, his primary and preferred source of sustenance.

What was he like? What kind of a job did he have? Did he have any hobby? Did he like spending his time indoor, reading book, living a quiet simple life? Was he a social butterfly that liked to spend his free time going out with friends, bathing in extravagant? What was his favourite meal? How he preferred his tea or coffee?

‘’I am sorry.’’ His voice, raspy and dry like sandpaper from unused, whispered remorsefully to the empty air, guilt and sorrow settled uncomfortably inside his chest. Somewhere out there, his significant other was waiting for him to come home, and probably a child wondering where he was; unaware that the day he walked out of the front door of their house or apartment was the last day they would ever see him again.

‘’Why are you look so sad? ’’

Startled out of his thoughts, the blond-haired teen’s head snapped up toward the open door where the voice was coming from.

A white-haired middle-age man with sharp, stern face was standing in the doorway. Sunlight reflected off thin, frameless glasses sitting on straight nose, obscuring his gaze from view. He wore a white coat that marked him as a doctor over plain blue shirt and dotted tie, smelling strongly of herbs and medicines with a faint touch of floral scent mixed in.

However, what caught his attention the most was the fact that this doctor was a _human_. More importantly, the doctor was aware that he was a ghoul.

A human finding out about a ghoul’s identity never spelled good news. Yet, oddly enough, the young ghoul felt no threat from the doctor; it was the opposite in fact. His presence brought a sense of security into the room, something he had not felt for a long while now, not since his mother’s death and his brother began distancing himself from him to focus more on his duty as the Lord of the Dark Land. The atmosphere, which was already calm and peaceful like a shelter, felt more like a sanctuary now.

He could tell with certainty and confident that the white-haired man would never betrayed him.

‘’Close your mouth off before a bug can fly in.’’ Reflexively responding to the doctor’s commanding tone, the young ghoul quickly snapped his jaw shut, ducked his head, and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the blows that usually came following that tone.

It never came.

He dared opened one eye to see the doctor had not move from his spot in the doorway. The only thing that moved was one of his white thin brows, rising in silence question.

The blond-haired teen felt his face heating up in embarrassment. ‘’Uh, I—‘’ Voice came out as a croak, the young ghoul cleared his throat then reached for the water jug on the bedside table, smearing blood on its handle, drinking directly from it, washing the metaphorical glass shards stuck in his throat.

Once he was done draining the jug, he looked at the white-haired doctor and inquired, ‘’Are you the one saving me?’’

‘’No, my wife did.’’ He replied. ‘’She found you half-conscious in the alley at the back of this clinic. You almost took a chunk of her cheek— but she is okay!’’ The doctor hurriedly tacked in at seeing a horrified expression overtaking his face. ‘’She bashed your head with her parasol before you could hurt her, so no harm done.’’

The young ghoul sighed, shoulders slumping in relief. ‘’That is good to know, though…’’ Frowning, he touched his head, feeling for a bump or a slight twinge that was no longer there thanked to his regenerative ability. ‘’I have no recollection about the event.’’

The doctor furrowed his brows, crossed the room, and proceeded to check up on him, the glare of the sunlight left his glasses and now he could properly see the older man’s narrow, azure eyes, seeing neither fear nor wariness for being in a close proximity to a man-eating monster.

‘’You are not afraid of me?’’ The words came out before he could properly articulate it.

‘’Should I?’’ The doctor questioned back, almost absentmindedly. ‘’Hmm… it might be due to concussion… strange; your healing factor should have fix it by now. Which RC types are you?’’ He questioned.

‘’I am a chimera, ukaku and rinkaku.’’ He answered honestly, not feeling bothered in the slightness that he had just casually revealed his trump card to a total stranger. Not even his brother knew about his status as chimera… which showed how far their relationship had fallen. ‘’I must be too far gone in my hunger to remember anything,’’ The young ghoul speculated before looking at the doctor straight in the eyes and smiled apologetically. Timidly, he implored. ‘’Uh, even though I do no harm, can you please send my apology to your wife?’’

‘’You can apologise directly to her later.’’ The doctor responded. ‘’Besides, she did you some harm too, so I think you are even. My name is Ryuuken Ishida, but you can call me Ratchet.’’ He added after a pause.

‘’It is nice to meet you Ratchet,’’ The young ghoul smiled, feeling an odd tingling sense of familiarity at the odd nicknames. ‘’I wish I could offer you the same courtesy, unfortunately, I have no name of my own to give.’’ Well, technically speaking, that was a lie, he did have a name, but he had forgotten what it was. No one had called him by that name for years since his mother’s death, not even his brother. Most ghouls that were kind enough to have a long talk with him instead trying to eat him either addressed the young ghoul as ‘the Lord’s little brother’, ‘kid’, ‘brat’ or ‘weakling’, which he was not very fond.

‘’I see. Have you ever considered of giving yourself a new name?’’

‘’… Honestly, that thought never cross my mind.’’

Ratchet made a noncommittal hum; there was no mistaking the amusement radiating from him. The young ghoul felt his cheeks heating up again and he turned his face away in order to hide it.

Only to have his gaze fell on the bloodstained tray.

He stared at it for quite a while, long enough for the doctor to give him a worry look.

‘’Is something wrong?’’ He followed the young ghoul’s gaze. ‘’Are you still hungry?’’

‘’No,’’ The young ghoul shook his head. ‘’It is just that… the person I just ate, do you have any information on him?’’

‘’Why do you want to know? ’’

‘’I want to remember him.’’

The doctor gave him a questioning look. Fully aware of how peculiar his request was, he elaborated. ‘’I do not view humans in the same way humans view cattle.’’ Emerald greens made contact with azure blues. ‘’Humans are like ghouls; they are people who have lives and loves ones. I want to mourn and keep remembering them as one. It is the least I could do to repay them.’’ He ducked his head down.

‘’I know it is strange.’’ He murmured when Ratchet gave no response.

‘’I would not know,’’ Ratchet finally responded. ‘’You are the first ghoul I have ever meet.’’

‘’I doubt that,’’ He disagreed; wringing his bloodied hands, wanting to lick them clean but was too self-conscious to do it in front of a human. ‘’Ghouls are good at blending in, some are better than the others are. You might have met one or two without knowing it. Who knows, maybe one of your fellow healers is one.’’

‘’Hmm, that is such a scary thought to have.’’ The doctor droned; thick, heavy coat of sarcasm laced every syllable of his words. He fished out a pack of tissues from his coat pocket and held it out to the young ghoul, who took some of it with a murmur of thanks and proceeded to wipe his hands.

‘’I gave you excised organs, a medical waste from the hospital.’’ The doctor informed. ‘’No one died to fill your belly.’’

The young ghoul stared at the doctor with wide eyes, then, like a flower in spring, big smile bloomed over his face and, once again, he ducked his head, bowing in gratitude. ‘’Thank you,’’

‘’Think nothing of it.’’ Ratchet turned his gaze to the clock on the wall. ‘’Ah, almost forgot I have a meeting today. Will you mind if I lock you inside the clinic? This place might be a neutral ground, but petty crimes still prone to happen around here. I will return by seven tonight.’’ He promised.

‘’I do not mind.’’

‘’If you are still hungry, there are still some meats left in the plastic container in the freezer, it is in the kitchen, third door on the right opposite of this room. There are some canned coffees there too. Clean changes of clothes are in the closet.’’ Ratchet opened the bottom drawer of the bedside table, pulled out a thick book, and shoved it to his now blood-free hands.

‘’We do not have television here, so, if you find yourself bore, either read this or go back to sleep. Do not overexert yourself, you still have not fully recover yet, I can tell, so do not dare deny it.’’ That last one was said with a tone that came out sharper than intended, but there was no malice to it. The teen suspected it was more a result of habit than an effort on threatening.

Ratchet was correct though; he was indeed still tired. All his wounds had healed except for his _kakuhou_ ; he could still felt the pain on his waist where the organ was located before it was ripped it out, which meant, it had not yet fully re-grew.

As Ratchet was about to turn around to leave, the young ghoul called out. ‘’Wait,’’

The doctor halted on his step and looked at him, gaze questioning.

‘’I almost forgot to ask, can you tell me where am I?’’ He implored.

‘’You are in my clinic at Dead End.’’ He replied.

‘’Ah, I see, thank you.’’ Dead End was a slum located in the fourteenth ward, quite far from the territory ruled by his brother at the twenty-fourth, which was just bellowed the twenty-third. The confusion of how he ended up here was outweighed by the relief that he was nowhere near his brother and his group. For now, he was safe.

Ratchet turned his back to him, the young ghoul knew not what possessed him, but the next thing he knew he had his fingers wrapped around the other’s wrist, tugging at it gently, halting the older man on his step once again. Unsurprisingly, the white-haired man was startled by the action, but just like before, considering the nature of the creature holding him, there was surprisingly lack of fear in his azure eyes and body languages.

‘’What is it now?’’ He inquired, there was no wariness in his tone either, only pure, genuine curiosity.

‘’… why, are you helping me?’’ The teen implored quietly. ‘’You know I am a ghoul. Your kin and my kin are enemies, but you still save me, why?’’

‘’I am a doctor,’’ The statement following that declaration was said so casually it was as though he was only commenting on the weather, yet, at the same time, it seemed to carry the weights of a thousand lifetime.

‘’Humans or ghouls, it matters not to me what your species are, life is life, and I have make an oath to preserve it.’’ With that, he left the room and closed the door, leaving the young ghoul alone with a book he barely could understand and his thoughts as the only companies.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The young ghoul never intended to overstay. As soon as his _kakuhou_ was fully healed, he planned to leave the clinic, not wanting to inconvenience the doctor and his wife, Shirayuki, any further.

Unfortunately, despite his exceptional regenerative ability for being a rinkaku, his _kakuhou_ was regenerating at a snail-pace; it took several months for the organ to re-grow fully. The steady supply of excised organs and blood packs on the verge of expiring that Ratchet smuggled out of the hospital did little to help the organ to regenerate faster. It almost brought him to the edge of despair, thinking that he was going to lose the only connection he had to the father he never had a chance to know, not to mention becoming a cripple.

Yet, here he was, six month later, finally fully recovered and still here, still unsure on how he ended up (partially) moving out from the room on the second floor of the clinic to Ratchet’s home on the third floor of an apartment complex located in the safest, ghoul-free area in the first ward.

His time with Vortex must have rattled some screws on his sanity loose, no doubt about it.

He had thought Ratchet was just an ordinary back-alley doctor, but turned out he was the owner of Ishida Hospital with a rather famous reputation to his name. This might explain why no one seemed to question his sudden presence in the doctor’s life, whom most thoughts as just some common street orphan Ratchet had taken in out of pity, which was not far from the truth.

The apartment was rather big with many spare rooms, his presence did not take any space at all and when the couple gave him a freedom to choose which bedrooms he wanted to sleep in, he admitted unabashedly that he had deliberately taken the second largest bedroom in the apartment after the master bedroom. Apparently, being locked up in a small, dark room for quite a long time had left a lasting impression in his psyche.

The place was pleasantly furnished but nothing too ostentatious or gaudy, unlike their neighbourhoods. Grand and opulent was one way to describe it, so different from the slum in the fourteenth ward. Stepping into this place felt like a dream, he hardly could believe a place like this existed. If not because of the smells of polluted air, never changing no matter where he was in the city, he would have thought that he had been transported to another dimension.

He used to the sights of filth-covered streets, the roads to it were rough and uneven, full of potholes and caked with grits, parks that looked more like small forest for being abandoned to the whims of Mother Nature, buildings and houses that looked almost on the verge of collapsing but the humans still lived in it anyway. In contrast, the houses and buildings here were clean and modern, the roads looked as smooth as frozen lake and the parks looked so pristine, precise and well maintained there was not a single blade of grass out of place.

Everything here was so artificial it was unsettling.

However, his feeling of unsettle quickly changed to one of dread when he learned that the main office of Commission of Counter Ghoul—, the organisation that was responsible for hunting down and exterminating his kin—, was just several blocks away. Not to mention, some of the Doves were living in the same building as him in addition to a few others that visited the apartment almost on regular basis due to being friends or lovers with the other residents of the complex. Even Ratchet had a few close acquaintances amongst them.

It took a while getting used living near the Dove’s nest. The sight of men and women clad in white trench coats carrying briefcases still put him on edge and he never expected the feeling to go away. The fear had been planted within him since when he was still very young, and only rooted deeper when his mother was slaughtered in front of his eyes.

At least, he was getting better at feigning nonchalant and hiding his nervousness around them. No longer flinching, picking up paces and hurriedly vacating the area whenever a Dove was approaching or eyeing the suitcases as though it was going to eat him.

Thankfully, he found solace in the doctor’s free clinic. Besides providing roof over his head and guilt free foods, the blond-haired teen also received a paying job at the clinic, which consisted of cleaning up, running errands and making coffee. He also helped Shirayuki to coax the doctor to eat on time whenever she was absent to coax him herself; Ratchet had a bad habit of neglecting his own health despite his tendency to keep reminding others to take care of their own health.

The doctor’s kindness did not end there however. When Ratchet found out that his reading and writing skills were lacking, he and his wife offered to improve his education, stunning the young ghoul who then proceeded to tackle the couple in a hug once his brain comprehended their offers, staining their suit and kimono with tears and snots, sobbing out ‘thank you, thank you’ repeatedly.

Living as hunted beings, forced to live in constant hiding, ghoul children rarely get a chance to step out of their houses to play like normal children let alone going to school in fear of being discovered. As consequence, most ghouls received little to no proper education. Getting a chance to learn how to read and write was the best thing that could happen to a ghoul. Therefore, under the two humans’ tutelage, the blond-haired teen put this excellent opportunity to good use and studied diligently like a person possessed.

With such dedication, no one was surprised when it took only several months for him to master his studies. The libraries and bookstores had become his new haunting grounds. There were so many interesting books out there, and now that he could understand its contents, he devoured them all like a ghoul on binge eating spree.

Some of the moneys he had collected from his job at the clinic went to buy books, new and old, which grew by the day and started filling up the shelves on both his rooms at the clinic and apartment at a fast rate, some of them had to be relocated to the other rooms, much to his mortification.

(‘’It is fine,’’ Ratchet assured him once he was done apologising profusely for encroaching on their spaces. ‘’I am glad that those rooms can serve a purpose. Besides, I happen to enjoy some of the books myself.’’ He added, not once looking up from the book he was reading

The young ghoul only realised later that the book Ratchet was reading was one of the books he had purchased.)

Shirayuki took her lesson a little further. She taught him how to do house chores such as cooking human foods and grocery shopping, amongst many other things that humans were expected to do, which was also the skills a ghoul needed to blend in perfectly within human society.

During this time, the young ghoul began a personal experiment of taste-testing human foods. He grew up in twenty-fourth ward. The underground labyrinth was almost isolated from the human world, so there was no need for ghouls who lived there to put on human façades.

Before Ratchet and Shirayuki, the young ghoul had never involved or interacted with humans on personal level, only observing them from a distant. Consequently, he was rather inexperience acting around humans; however, this did not mean he was completely oblivious. He knew the trick of how to fake eating human foods at least. He just never had a chance to put them into practice until now.

The young ghoul admitted that this experiment was driven more by curiosity. He was aware of his kin inability to consume human foods, but he never tasted one before, so he would like to try some; surely, not all human foods were as bad as the older ghouls made them up to be were.

Turned out, he was wrong.

All of them tasted disgusting, and _toxic_ , he felt as if something was eating his stomach from the inside; it was uncomfortable and painful, second only to ghoul hunger, leaving him in the state of lethargy for days if he did not immediately purge his stomach.

However, from the experiment, he learned which human foods were fouler than the others were, which ones were tolerable, which ones were easier to swallow and regurgitated, and which ones must be avoided at all cost, keeping up appearance be darned.

Spicy curry, mapo tofu and meat sauce received the honour of occupying the three top seats from the last category. A demon must have been responsible in inventing those dishes, designed specifically to inflict pain and torture upon humankind. They burned his throat and stomach for hours like hot molten lead, and no amount of coffee and water could wash away the disgusting flavours. He almost gone to Ratchet and begged the doctor to remove his throat and stomach surgically.

(‘’I think, you are just not fond of spicy foods.’’ Shirayuki remarked wryly. His sensitive hearing easily heard her soft voice through the closed door of the bathroom.

‘’Yes… perhaps…’’ He acknowledged weakly, head leaning against the cold wall directly in front of the toilet, his breathing ragged, beads of sweats rolling down his temple, guts churning uncomfortably from another round of purging his stomach from disgusting poison that human called foods.

‘’Will you like a cup of coffee?’’ She offered.

‘’… Yes please,’’)

Later, he found out that bacon was on another level of worst entirely. It tasted like bloated corpse that had been left to rot in stinky water sewer for years. It put him more than a little under the weather. The smell of it brought tears to his eyes and gave him nightmares at night. Something even the worst torture session under Vortex was not able to bring.

It was good to say that pork products had been exiled out of Ishida’s family menus for the rest of eternity.

Nevertheless, the payoff was worth it, thanked to Shirayuki’s teaching and his experiment, his human act was improving from dubiously passable to near perfect.

One year passed by quickly but he did not notice it.

Not until he came.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. English is not my native language, I am sorry for the grammars and tenses problem you encounter while reading this.


End file.
